Love, Life and Rational Polyamory

~Community~

Let’s backtrack. There’s not much of a poly community here. It’s a small-ish, conservative, fairly religious area. Polyamory is still considered immoral by a lot of people, even if they aren’t religious at all. I wasn’t out as poly for a long time, and now, though I’m mostly out, it’s a quiet “out”. My friends and family know my partner is married, and that his wife is actively supportive. They know I’m non-monogamous. Sometimes I think it makes a couple of them uncomfortable, but I haven’t had anyone aggressively confront me with negativity, or drop me as a friend (or as a sister, or as a daughter.)

This is why community is so important to me.

I want to be around people who embrace my choices. Not simply tolerate them.

I don’t consider myself a poly activist, but since I WANT community, I have to go out and pretend to be one. Except I’m kind of shy. (Also, sometimes people annoy me and I just want to stay in bed.) What I really need is a fairy godmother who will conjure me a fully functioning polyamorous community, complete with established events and nice people.

Ugh.

So tonight, I was Googling “polyamory community”, in an attempt to find an article that I could share in my (very small) local super secret Facebook group, about how to build a community. I want people to get proactive with networking and socializing, so that I can, selfishly, have my dream community.

I didn’t really find an appropriate article. So I’m writing instead.

Why community is important, by Me.

1) We get to learn about ourselves, by learning about others.

2) We get inspired and encouraged by the examples of other people.

3) We get to see how other styles of relationships work. (Or don’t work.)

4) We get to have fun! We get to socialize, and laugh, and eat, and do things!

5) We get to create our own social norms, within our groups.

6) We get to feel accepted. We get to belong. We get to love, and be loved.

5 thoughts on “~Community~”

We’ve discussed this in depth ourselves. We feel like there is very little “poly community” here in central PA.

We have a “pod” of poly friends spread across 4 states and we occasionally all get together, but it would be nice to have a local one. The closest active community to us seems to be two hours away in Philadelphia.

We’ve been trying to figure out if we are alone here. We have some friends who are in and out of the life, but outside of our Triad, we don’t know any others. We would love to, though.

I left FB due to so much other drama that I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted nothing to do with toxic relationships… including blood family… so I removed the connection. So far, I have found the best community on twitter (which is where I follow you and your blog) and have made wonderful friends and built relationships.

I am on meetup and there are no communities nearby. The closest is Phila. I have considered starting one, but I just don’t have anything left to give (emotionally or physically) due to a nasty car crash that I am still recovering from. Maybe after I get myself going again and get my artistic self in gear I’ll find some positive energy. Right now I’m fighting the negative and that’s not healthy and I think would not end up well.

I’ve been lurking around Reddit and I’m trying to see if there’s a decent community there, but it seems like there are two types of people… those who need help managing jealousy, and those who ‘know how Poly is done’ (not).

So, like you, I think we will be in limbo for a while. I love our family that we’ve created, and maybe that’s all we need, but it would be nice to talk with others who live like we do and break the norm. People nearby would be nice, so that we don’t feel isolated.